And there I was at the Pearly Gates. I could see St. Peter on his laptop checking in the latest admits in the cloud.  A sign above him looked like it had been recently posted in the last 500 years: “NO standardized admission tests, extra time, dispensations, or indulgences”. It was my turn and he looked up. “Micro-credentials please?” I looked stunned. He continued, seeing my consternation. “OK. Any blessings…beatitudes…competencies? None? Who taught you? What can you demonstrate you learned?” I woke up screaming. The pandemic had been playing with my mind.

I went to a British school founded decades before the King James Bible. It is so old (close to 450 years, in fact) that this private school was, and is still known, as a public school in the U.K. Divinity was very much part of the required curriculum, and as I looked back on what I learned, it struck me as odd that a school with centuries of experience had decided the best way to teach Christianity was to force their students literally to memorize large parts of the four Gospels. I supposed it must mean they thought Christianity was pretty much self-explanatory; or that what was said…